Hundertmark, as ab., P.32.89 Fr. Hoffrnann, Consult. med. I. Cas. 28, P.141.90
Apoplexy. Cummius in Eph. Nat. Cur. Dec I., ann. I, obs. 58. Mobius, Institut. med., P.65. J. J. Wepfer, Histor. Apoplect. Amstel., 1724, P.457.
Paralysis, Hoechstetter. Obs. med., dec. VIII., obs. 8, P.245. journal de Medorrhinum, 1760, Sept., P.211. Unzer, Arzt VI., St. 301.91 Hundertmark, as above, P.33.92 Krause. Schubert, Diss. de scabie humani corp., Lips., 1779, P.23.93 Karl Wenzel, as above, P.174.
Melancholy, Reil, memorab. Fasc., III., P.177.94
Insanity, Landais in Roux, journ. de Medecine, Tom. 41. Amat. Lusitanus, Curat. med. Cent. II., Cur. 74. J. H. Schulze, Brune, Diss. Casus aliquot mente alienatorm, Halle, 1707, Cas. I, P.5.95 F. H. Waitz, medic.-chirurg. Aufsatze, Th I, P.130.96 Altenburg, 1791. Richter in Hufel. Journal, XV., II. Grossmann in Baldinger’s neuem’, Magaz., XI., I.97
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(89 The itch in a youth of 20 years was suppressed by a purgative which was allowed to act violently for several days, after which he for two years suffered daily the most violent convulsions, until, through the use of birch-juice, the itch was brought back to the skin.)
(90 A young mail of 17 years, of vigorous constitution and good intelligence, was attacked three years ago, after itch had been driven out, first by haemoptysis and then by epilepsy, which grew worse through medicines until the fits came on every two hours. Another surgeon, through frequent blood-lettings and many medicines, effected that he remained free from epilepsy for four weeks, but soon afterwards the epilepsy returned while he was taking his noonday nap, and the patient had two or three fits in the nights; at the same time he was attacked with a very severe cough and suffocating catarrh, especially during the nights, when he expectorated a very fetid fluid. He was confined to his bed. At last, after much medicine, the disease increased so much that he had ten fits at night and eight during the day. Nevertheless he never in these fits either clenched his thumbs or had foam at his mouth. His memory is weakened. The attacks come at the approach of meal-time, but more frequently after meals. During his nightly attacks he remains in the deepest sleep without awaking, but in the morning he feels as if bruised all over. The only warning of a fit consists in his rubbing his nose and drawing up his left foot, but then he suddenly falls down.)
(91 A woman, after having the itch driven out, had paralysis of one leg and remained lame.)
(92 After driving off the itch with sulphur ointment, a man of 53 years had hemiplegia.)
(93 A minister who for a long time had in vain used internal remedies against the itch finally grew tired of it and drove it off with ointment, when his upper extremities were, in a measure, paralyzed and a hard, thick skin formed in the palms of the hands, full of bloody chaps and insufferable itching.
In the same place the author mentions also a woman whose fingers contracted from an itch driven out by external means; she suffered of them a long time.)
(94 He found an idiotic melancholy arise in consequence of suppressed itch; when the itch broke out again the melancholy disappeared.)
(95 A student, 20 years old, had the humid itch, which so covered his hands that he became incapable of attending to his work. It was driven off by sulphur ointment. But shortly after it appeared how much his health had suffered from it. He became insane, sang or laughed where it was unbecoming, and ran until he sank to the ground from exhaustion. From day to day he became more sick in soul and in body, until at last hemiplegy came on and he died. The intestines were found grown together into a firm mass, studded with little ulcers full of protuberances, some of the size of walnuts, which were filled, with a substance resembling gypsum.)
(96 The same story.)
(97 A man of 50 years with whom, after driving away the itch by ointments, general dropsy had set in; when the itch re-appeared and drove away the swelling he drove it away again, when he fell into raving madness, while head and neck swelled up to suffocation; at last blindness and complete suppression of urine were added. Artificial irritants applied to the skin and a strong emetic brought back the itch again; when the eruption extended over the whole body all the former accidents disappeared.)
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Who, after meditating on even these few examples which might be much increased from the writings of the physicians of that time and from my experience,* would remain so thoughtless as to ignore the great evil hidden within, the Psora, of which evil the eruption of itch and its other forms, the tinea capitis, milk crust, tetter, etc., are only indications announcing the internal, monstrous disease of the whole organism, only local external symptoms which act vicariously and mitigatingly for the internal disease? Who, after reading even the few cases described, would hesitate to acknowledge that the Psora, as already stated, is the most destructive of all chronic miasmas? Who would be so stolid as to declare, with, the later allopathic physicians, that the itch-eruption, tinea and tetters are only situated superficially upon the skin and may, therefore, without fear, be driven out through external means since the internal of the body has no part in it and retains its health?
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(* An opponent, of the old school, has reproached me that I have not adduced my own experience to prove that the chronic maladies, when they are not of syphilitic or sycotic origin, spring from the miasma of itch, as such proofs from experience would have been convincing. Oho! If the examples here adduced by me from both the older and from modern non-Homoeopathic writings have not yet enough convincing proof, I should like to know what other examples (even my own not excepted) could be conceived of as more striking proofs? How often (and I might say almost always) have opponents of the old school refused all credence to the observations of honorable Homoeopathic physicians, because they were not made before their own eyes and because the names of the patients were only indicated with a letter; as if private patients would allow their names to be used! Why should I endure the like? And do I not prove my point in a manner most indubitable and most free from partisanship through the experience of so many other honest practitioners?)
Surely, among all the crimes which the modem physicians of the old school are guilty of, this is the most hurtful, shameful and unpardonable!
The man who, from the examples given and from innumerable others of a like nature, is not willing to see the exact opposite of that assertion blinds himself on purpose and works intentionally for the destruction of mankind.
Or are they so little instructed as to the nature of all the miasmatic maladies connected with diseases of the skin that they do not know that they all take a similar course in their origin? And that all such miasmas become first internal maladies of the whole system before their external assuaging symptom appears on the skin?
We shall more closely elucidate this process, and in consequence we shall see that all miasmatic maladies which show peculiar local ailments on the skin are always present as internal maladies in the system before they show their local symptom externally upon the skin; but that only in acute diseases, after taking their course through a certain number of days, the local symptom, together with the internal disease, is wont to disappear, which then leaves the body free from both. In chronic miasmas, however, the outer local symptom may either be driven from the skin or may disappear of itself, while the internal disease, if uncured, neither wholly nor in part ever leaves the system; on the contrary, it continually increases with the years, unless healed by art.
I must here dwell the more circumstantially on this process of nature, because the common physicians, especially of modem days, are so deficient in vision; or, more correctly stated, so blind that although they could, as it were, handle and feel this process in the origin and development of acute miasmatic eruptional diseases, they nevertheless neither surmised nor observed the like process in chronic diseases, and therefore declared their local symptoms as secondary growths and impurities existing merely externally on the skin, without any internal fundamental disease, and this as well with the chancre and the fig-wart as with the eruption of itch, and fore – since they overlooked the chief disease or perhaps even boldly denied it – by a mere external treatment and destruction of these local ailments they have brought unspeakable misfortunes on suffering humanity.
With respect to the origin of these three chronic maladies, as in the acute, miasmatic eruptional diseases, three different important moments are to be more attentively considered than has hitherto been done: First, the time of infection; secondly, the period of time during which the whole organism is being penetrated by the disease infused, until it has developed within; and thirdly, the breaking out of the external ailment, whereby nature externally demonstrates the completion of the internal, development of the miasmatic malady throughout the whole organism.
The infection with miasmas, as well of the acute as of the above-mentioned chronic diseases, takes place, without doubt, in one single moment, and that moment, the one most favorable for infection.
Hahnemann's three major publications chart the development of homeopathy. In the Organon of Medicine, we see the fundamentals laid out. Materia Medica Pura records the exact symptoms of the remedy provings. In his book, The Chronic Diseases, Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homoeopathic Cure, he showed us how natural diseases become chronic in nature when suppressed by improper treatment.